1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to illuminated apparel. More particularly the invention relates to an illumination device for apparel or other worn garments to illuminate the user for improving the visibility of the user by others, especially when on a roadway. The device is configured with means for wireless communication to a remote communication source for syncing the illumination device with the remote communication source.
2. Prior Art
Safety is a major concern for many motorcycle riders and cycle riders both off the highway and especially on the highway and roads. A contributing factor of unsafe riding conditions lies in the limited visibility of the bike or motorcycle rider due to relatively small size of the motorcycle and rider, compared to larger passenger vehicles on the road. Additionally, car and truck drivers are inherently looking for other cars and trucks and not attuned to looking for motorcycle riders who may be riding in a parallel lane. Because they are not looking for a motorcycle or rider, and because of the relatively small size of a rider and motorcycle compared with a truck or car, drivers in passenger vehicles have difficulty spotting riders and their motorcycles when adjacent motorcyclist or during an approach to a forward positioned motorcyclist on the highway.
This lack of cognisance of the presence of a motorcyclist, and inherent inattention to their presence approaching a motorcyclist or adjacent thereto, can frequently cause car and truck drivers to incorrectly fail to anticipate a lane change by the motorcycle rider or the adjacent motorcycle rider passing their vehicle. Due to such inattention and a bias toward watching for larger vehicles, even when the rider has the small signal light on their motorcycle or scooter activated their presence and their changing lanes legally is frequently missed.
As such, the scooter or motorcycle rider can be riding with caution and legally passing and making legal lane changes with proper signaling, but can still be easily involved in a collision or other accident. For the car or truck driver striking a motorcycle and rider will have little effect and in some cases a glancing tap of the car against the motorcycle will actually be missed by the larger vehicle driver. However, for the unlucky motorcycle rider, who is riding and doing everything correctly, a tap of a car or truck, or a larger impact, can easily result in severe injury and even death.
As a result, conventional solutions to the problem generally revolve around making the motorcycle more visible to other drivers. In some states adding lighting to the motorcycle, or changing the lighting thereof is illegal and the rider is precluded from trying to increase visibility. In states where such is legal, proactive riders who value life and limb, tend to take action to increase visibility.
For example, the motorcycle may have extra lights engaged to all sides of the motorcycle fairings which are always illuminated. In addition, is it well known that some motorcycle headlights are always left illuminated when driving in both night and daylight conditions in order to make the rider and motorcycle more visible to adjacent drivers.
However, this conventional solution of illuminating the motorcycle may not be possible for users having smaller or customized motorcycles which do not facilitate the addition of a plurality of such lights. Many motorcycles and motor scooters lack sufficient electrical power and/or a suitable battery with sufficient power for maintaining such auxiliary lighting in an illuminated state.
As such, because some state prohibit lighting changes, and because many motor scooters and motorcycles will not support additional wattage required for extra lighting, in order to employ illumination as a means for making the motorcycle and rider more than a shadow in the perirhinal vision of car and truck drivers, the illumination of the rider, as opposed to the motorcycle, may provide a better solution to this problem. Such rider illumination would be especially advantageous since it is well known, that the human brain tends to more easily see and focus on, and thus naturally recognize, a human form. This cognisance of human form is known to be a reflex action due to the brain being hard wired to recognize and access the potential for an approaching friend or foe, more readily than the abstract shape of an adjacent or approaching motorcycle. Thus making the human form of the rider more easily viewed and/or ascertained by adjacent and approaching drivers will enhance this natural bias of the human mind to recognize the presence of another person in their proximity.
In addition, illuminated motorcycle rider helmets, such as U.S. Pat. No. 7,948,367, are known in the art which aim to try and make the motorcycle and rider more visible by illuminating headgear situated above the motorcycle. However the design of conventional helmets, and even those employing such illumination, tend to have a sleek and streamline shape, which strongly matches that of the motorcycle, rather than the human form. Further in the dark, the distance between the headgear and the motorcycle remains unlit, and does not provide a human form which is more easily visible. As can be easily ascertained, such helmets viewed by adjacent and approaching drivers who are biased toward looking for cars and trucks and the lighting thereon, are visually comparable with the abstract shape of the motorcycle, and thus similarly fail to provide the advantage of highlighting a human form, when illuminated.
As a result, there is a continuing unmet need for an illumination device for motorcycle, motor scooter, and even bicycle riders, which will enhance the projection of a human form to proximate car and truck drivers who are not mentally attuned to be on the lookout for cycle riders. Such a device should engage with apparel or other worn garments, to illuminate the wearing user in a manner that enhances their human form, whether as a stick-figure or otherwise, for improving the perception of their presence, and thus their visibility, to adjacent and approaching car and truck drivers.
In at least one preferred mode, the device should be adapted to engage with a rider to illuminate at least the limbs of the rider of a motor scooter or motorcycle. The device in this mode should advantageously provide a means for wireless communication with the lighting system of the motorcycle, thereby allowing the illuminated apparel device to provide an extension of the turn signaling (i.e. blinker), hazards, and/or braking system of the motorcycle, incorporated into the rider apparel. This electrical communication with the motorcycle lighting will also automatically deactivate the apparel lighting when the rider turns off the motorcycle so the rider need not accidently walk into a restaurant or the like in an illuminated fashion.
Such a device should advantageously provide a means for substantially illuminating and projecting for view to adjacent and approaching car and truck drivers, the human form, such as the legs the feet and/or arms and torso. Such a device should also be adapted to communicate with other wireless enabled remote communication sources, such as computers, handheld electronics, music players, and the like, allowing the user to sync the illumination device being worn, with the desired source.
The forgoing examples of related art and limitation related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive, and they do not imply any limitations on the invention described and claimed herein. Various limitations of the related art will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading and understanding of the specification below and the accompanying drawings.